


Reflections

by CelesteIsHere



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Black Inquisitor, Depression, Diary/Journal, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, POV First Person, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Sad, because. its a journal entry, i am black also., i mention this bc he says the nword once and i dont want anyone to think it was wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26719423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelesteIsHere/pseuds/CelesteIsHere
Summary: A journal entry from Inquisitor Xavier Conway, a few months after the Inquisition disbanded.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 2





	Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> i was re-playing my inq and got Feelings about how he felt at the start of the inquisition vs end of trespasser. also my inq is severely dyslexic but i didn't include all the spelling errors and whatnot due to readability but just assume that it is indeed there

[On the crumpled-up page is a journal entry written in a messy and uncontrolled hand.]

_I tried so hard, y’know. I was minding my own business, trying to provide for my family- cliche shit- blah blah blah, wrong place and wrong time and suddenly I become the Inquisitor. Except people keep calling me Herald no matter how many times I tell them I’m just some guy. They fall to their knees, kiss the ground I walk on, thank the Maker for sending me to the world to save them. How the fuck am I supposed to feel about that? People still do it. I don’t go outside much, these days._

_It makes me angry. I don’t know what “it” is. It’s everything. People believing so much that I’m holy, when it was just Solas’s fuck-up that made all this happen. Fucking Solas. I still don’t know what that guy wants. Something to do with the fade and the veil. Fuck, I don’t know shit about magic. I like it, but I don’t understand it. Well, I’m liking it less these days. Fucking Solas._

_What else makes me angry. Oh, yeah, he took my fucking arm and now people look at me with this stupid pity that makes me wanna rip my hair out. Even Dorian does it. He thinks he doesn’t, and he’ll roll his eyes when other people do it, but he does. When he’s buttoning a shirt for me or cooking me burnt food. That look when he gives me a plate and then realizes that he forgot to cut up the food for me._

_I had everything and then I had nothing. I believed I was doing something great. I took the time to comb through every corner of every place we went to just to see if I could help someone. And I did. That’s what made me great- not the mark, not the Maker or whatever, but the cheer I saw in people when I helped them. Someone big helping the little people. Sounds like Sera. I always believed in what she said. I miss her._

_I keep getting off track. My point is that I thought that the Inquisition was going to change the world. We did. Well, we stopped it from ending which is pretty damn good. After Corypheus, I wanted to use the Inquisition to rebuild Ferelden and Orlais. And not just cosmetic repairs- I wanted to build schools for everyone, hospitals, printing presses and libraries. I wanted to build farms, and not just the rows that humans make, but the cultivating of the natural environment that the Dalish do. I wanted to build wells and housing and ovens and bridges and a billion other things that would have made southern Thedas a little better._

_Then I got the rug pulled out from under me._

_The rug was pulled so sharply, and I fell to the ground so heavily that I’m still sitting there, licking my wounds._

_The Inquisition was no longer safe. Qunari spies, Solas’s spies, and probably a dozen other people’s spies had infiltrated. We had started to get reports of Inquisition soldiers abusing their power, raping and pilaging the vulnerable. It made me sick. I remember there was one Inquisition soldier who groped one of the servants. I was harsh. I put him in stocks for two days, let people throw stuff at him, let him piss and shit himself and cry in humiliation. When I let him out, I cut his hand and told him that whenever he reaches for something and that scar catches his eye, he better remember this moment, he better remember to never touch someone like that again. I kicked him out. I thought that would have set an example. I thought that was enough for people to not follow in his footsteps. I guess not. The Inquisition had to be disbanded. There was no way that it could continue._

_Solas caused it all, and he wanted to do worse, and he told me everything I was doing was useless because he already won. And then he took my fucking arm. I watched it disintegrate, float off into the air in green specks like ash from a fire. It didn’t even hurt. I wish it did._

_I feel so fucking pathetic, sitting here scribbling this while my left sleeve hangs empty, sitting here with messy locs that I can’t be bothered to get my sister to re-twist, sitting here too tired to eat or talk or thank the man I love for putting up with me. I wish the mark killed me, sometimes._

_I’m angry, but mostly I feel fucking hollow. So hollow, I can’t even write a song about it. I thought I endured pain after Grandma Noelle died and after I sought out Aedan to hurt me. I knew he was fucking crazy and abusing me, but I wanted it. I wanted to feel something, even if it was bad. I hurt so much now that I don’t even want that. I just want to sleep._

_I also want to kill Solas, but that bastard is a god, and I’m just some nigga who can’t even remember to brush his teeth anymore._

_I made Dorian stay. I told him that we would break up if he went back to Tevinter, even with that stupid crystal he tried to give me. I see him sometimes, staring out the window with a troubled look. Frowns forming new lines that weren’t there when I met him, brows furrowed, and eyes far away. He doesn’t want to be here. He may even regret letting that opportunity slip between his fingers._

_Fuck. I feel guilty. I told him I wanted a family with him and his eyes lit up. They haven’t lit up since. He tries with me, and I appreciate it, but what I promised him is looking further and further away. He sacrificed so much for me, and all I can give him is a pathetic half-smile when he cooks for me, cleans me, holds me, tries to fuck me but then gives up because I never have the energy._

_Angry, guilty, empty. Angry, guilty, empty. All I feel. And tired. I’m going to sleep._


End file.
